We had a fun weekend and were able to get ahead on our meals this week which is why I'm so excited to share our multi-use chicken dinner with you all! When you're busy you know how hard it is to make a home cooked meal every night, well this recipe is going to take a chicken and turn it into multiple meals! We got 5 meals from ours but we are 2 adults and 2 small kids. This recipe is going to be in two parts, first the chicken and second the stock!
My advice for this is to buy the cheapest whole chicken you can, I usually get a frying chicken and when they come on sale and then freeze them or use it right away. You can do the chicken frozen or fresh just make sure to adjust the cooking times a little!
I bring you step 1:
- 1 whole frying chicken (fresh or frozen)
- 1 onion, chopped (1 do it in chunks)
- 1/4 cup of lemon juice
- Spray your slow cooker and put the chicken in place the chopped onion in and the lemon juice, set to low and cook for 6-8 hours
Once the chicken is done I take it out and get as much useful meat off as I can, don't throw about the scraps you'll need them for the next recipe. I use the chicken in a couple meals:
- Chicken, potatoes and gravy, with corn on the side
- Fajitas with the dark meat all you need is a few peppers, onion, and seasoning
- Pasta topped with marinara and shredded chicken
- A night of leftovers
- The chicken stock with can be used with leftover chicken for soup or to add flavour to almost any dish
Now for the overnight stock and this is the easiest part, step 2:
- All the scraps from the chicken dinner step 1 (including the onion)
- Chopped celery
- Veggies you have on hand: I used carrots, broccoli, and mushroom stems coarsely chopped
- Seasonings: I used fresh chives, parsley, rosemary, garlic, and cilantro
- Water
- Throw everything back into the slow cooker and cover with water, turn on to your longest setting for me its low for 10 hours
- Let cook overnight and in the morning strain into containers. I made 1 ice cube tray and 2 – 6 cup containers.
The stock is great to make homemade soup because its full of flavor, or you can add the ice cubes to almost anything to add a hint of flavor like potatoes, pasta, rice, or use in recipes like risotto or marinades.
All these meals cost me under $10 because most of my ingredients were on sale and the fresh herbs we grow in our garden, so really inexpensive and an easy to way to get ahead especially with fall because soups are a delicious thing to have on a cold day!
What are ways you get ahead with home cooked meals?
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